Bus 375: Project Management Report
Creating a Methodology
BUS 375: Project Management
Professor Jim Schoeck
December 1, 2013
I think that corporate culture at an executive level is a big driver in many companies. Within any team of leaders and especially executive level leaders, there are usually strong and controlling personalities. Let’s face it; they would not be in a position with that level of power if they did not have a confident and dominant personality. The idea of a centralized Project Management Office (PMO) would potentially require the leaders in areas other than where the PMO reports to relinquish some power to the leader of the area where the PMO does report. I believe this to be the driver behind the executive staff in the example …show more content…
case waiting as long as they did to develop this methodology. That being the case, I would feel that the communication from John Compton lacked the detail to encourage his team to develop a methodology. Also, I would conclude that these team members did not do any research to justify having or not having a PMO methodology. Had they researched this they would have found that proper organizational structures lead to better efficiency in the managing projects the business in general (Spalek, S. 2013) and may have accomplished this sooner rather than waiting for the directive to “get it done now”.
A well-defined and effective structure for a PMO is to have a centralized team responsible for the managing and oversight of an organizations project portfolio.
This includes technical and non-technical projects faced by any area or department within and organization. I believe a centralized PMO is becoming a necessity to most industries and organizations. Based upon the unique nature of any individual business, I think that the PMO should report to the department that makes the most sense for the respective business. In today’s world and with the exponential growth of technology, most IT departments have a lot of experience managing projects. Further, many projects that organizations are faced with are IT based or if they are not they have a heavy IT influence. That said, if a company operates mainly outside of the world of IT and there is little involvement with IT on projects, it may make more sense to have the project team report to an operational or financial …show more content…
leader.
The question of a PMO being inside or outside of IT, I do not feel has a clear right or wrong answer without understanding the context.
When tasked with addressing this question in an existing organization, I think it is important to understand the types of projects that are being worked on. If they are mainly computer hardware, software, programming or projects of another technical nature, I think that is a no brainer. PMO should report to the CIO. If projects are of an operational nature or there is a significant overhead, revenue or profit associated to them, then it may be more effective to have the PMO report to the COO or CFO instead of the CIO. I think a good example to show how this may work is: “The construction of the Egyptian pyramids was managed by several generations, as described by Alessandro Prudencio in the 4th Ibero American Congress on Project Management. There are no explicit signs and no evidences of project management activity in the available documentation about the pyramids, although there are technical evidences of engineering and architecture procedures.” (do Valle, J., e Silvia, W., & Soares, C. 2008) and clearly there was no IT Department at that
time.
At the end of the day, regardless of the area that the PMO reports to, there should be a cross-functional group that make up the PMO and set standards for managing projects. Having influential leaders outside of any one department will provide more visibility, credibility and support for project work. On order for the PMO to be effective, it mist have one centralized leader, wherever that makes sense for the respective organization.
References
do Valle, J., e Silvia, W., & Soares, C. (2008). Project Management Office (PMO) - Principles in Practice. AACE International Transactions, 1-9.
Kerzner, H. R. (2013). Project management. (11th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Son.
Spalek, S. (2013). Improving Industrial Engineering Performance through a Successful Project Management Office. Engineering Economics, 24(2), 88-98. doi:10.5755/j01.ee.24.2.3087
BUS 375: Project Management
Professor Jim Schoeck
December 1, 2013
I think that corporate culture at an executive level is a big driver in many companies. Within any team of leaders and especially executive level leaders, there are usually strong and controlling personalities. Let’s face it; they would not be in a position with that level of power if they did not have a confident and dominant personality. The idea of a centralized Project Management Office (PMO) would potentially require the leaders in areas other than where the PMO reports to relinquish some power to the leader of the area where the PMO does report. I believe this to be the driver behind the executive staff in the example …show more content…
case waiting as long as they did to develop this methodology. That being the case, I would feel that the communication from John Compton lacked the detail to encourage his team to develop a methodology. Also, I would conclude that these team members did not do any research to justify having or not having a PMO methodology. Had they researched this they would have found that proper organizational structures lead to better efficiency in the managing projects the business in general (Spalek, S. 2013) and may have accomplished this sooner rather than waiting for the directive to “get it done now”.
A well-defined and effective structure for a PMO is to have a centralized team responsible for the managing and oversight of an organizations project portfolio.
This includes technical and non-technical projects faced by any area or department within and organization. I believe a centralized PMO is becoming a necessity to most industries and organizations. Based upon the unique nature of any individual business, I think that the PMO should report to the department that makes the most sense for the respective business. In today’s world and with the exponential growth of technology, most IT departments have a lot of experience managing projects. Further, many projects that organizations are faced with are IT based or if they are not they have a heavy IT influence. That said, if a company operates mainly outside of the world of IT and there is little involvement with IT on projects, it may make more sense to have the project team report to an operational or financial …show more content…
leader.
The question of a PMO being inside or outside of IT, I do not feel has a clear right or wrong answer without understanding the context.
When tasked with addressing this question in an existing organization, I think it is important to understand the types of projects that are being worked on. If they are mainly computer hardware, software, programming or projects of another technical nature, I think that is a no brainer. PMO should report to the CIO. If projects are of an operational nature or there is a significant overhead, revenue or profit associated to them, then it may be more effective to have the PMO report to the COO or CFO instead of the CIO. I think a good example to show how this may work is: “The construction of the Egyptian pyramids was managed by several generations, as described by Alessandro Prudencio in the 4th Ibero American Congress on Project Management. There are no explicit signs and no evidences of project management activity in the available documentation about the pyramids, although there are technical evidences of engineering and architecture procedures.” (do Valle, J., e Silvia, W., & Soares, C. 2008) and clearly there was no IT Department at that
time.
At the end of the day, regardless of the area that the PMO reports to, there should be a cross-functional group that make up the PMO and set standards for managing projects. Having influential leaders outside of any one department will provide more visibility, credibility and support for project work. On order for the PMO to be effective, it mist have one centralized leader, wherever that makes sense for the respective organization.
References
do Valle, J., e Silvia, W., & Soares, C. (2008). Project Management Office (PMO) - Principles in Practice. AACE International Transactions, 1-9.
Kerzner, H. R. (2013). Project management. (11th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Son.
Spalek, S. (2013). Improving Industrial Engineering Performance through a Successful Project Management Office. Engineering Economics, 24(2), 88-98. doi:10.5755/j01.ee.24.2.3087